Monday, February 28, 2011

My inner nerd was thrilled to read THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE, a book of essays by YA authors that discuss THE HUNGER GAMES series in thoughtful detail. Reading the book gave me great ammo to use against anyone who dares say that the series isn’t deep enough – that it isn’t really literature but merely throwaway entertainment.

In one of my favorite essays, “Your Heart Is a Weapon the Size of Your Fist: Love as a Political Act in the Hunger Games”, Author Mary Borsellino compares themes in HG to George Orwell’s 1984 and shows how love was able to conquer hate in Katniss’ case where it did not for Winston. How’s that for deep?

But the essays on topics that range from PTSD to reality vs unreality to the science behind the books are not merely intellectually engaging, they are also fun to read. Sarah Rees Brennan, Jennifer Lynn Barnes and others bring the same relatable voice and humor that they do in their fiction offerings.

I’m not going to give THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE a Zombie Chicken rating since it is secondary dystopian lit, but I will say, if you are A HUNGER GAMES fan, you need this book in your collection.

THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE will come out in April 2011. Find out more about it at the publisher's website.

This sounds interesting to me. I recently read The Hunger Games series, and would be interested in some critical discussion on the books, as I feel like there was so much there to talk about. I am going to have to look for this one soon.

Ok, funny story. So, when I saw your post with the book cover on my dashboard reading list my initial reaction was "What the heck? That's a blatant rip-off of The Hunger Games!" I was pretty ticked off until I read further and realized that it was about THG and not ripping it off. Whoops.

Anyways, now that I'm done being silly and mad, I am totally going to go seek this out. Thanks for bringing it's existence to my attention.

I'm sitting here thinking back, wondering if I ever called the HG trilogy shallow. I don't think so, but it might do me some good to get some positive support for that damn third book, which felt PAINFUL to finish.

This sounds amazing! The Hunger Games is pretty epic and worthy of critical essays. I saw Suzanne speak at the National Book Fest and it was even more evident how much deeper this book was than some dystopian YA book.

Oh, how I want to read this...I am wondering if they is anything useful in this collection to add to my teaching of this book?? I'll probably be finished teaching this unit by the time it's over, but there's always next year!

Just looking at the title made me think of The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson, but then the cover was all, "Duh, Katniss!" I read essays regarding Percy Jackson once and will read this as well. Thanks for telling us about it :)

I was sent an ARC of this one for review - as a lover of both HG and essays, I was hoping it would live up to my expectations. I plan to start soon, but so nice to read that you felt it was a worthy read.

I absolutely love the idea of this book! It is great to see literature that you love discussed! My boyfriend's parents just became huge Hunger Games fans and I'm thinking that this might be a great gift to read them when they make their way through the trilogy.